The 64DD is a notorious failure in Nintendo’s history, often remembered in a sort of shamed reverence among devoted fans. Launched after multiple delays at the tail end of the Nintendo 64’s lifecycle, this peripheral saw very few games and was discontinued less than a year after its debut. Yet, Nintendo’s hope for the 64DD’s success seemed to push them to put enormous pressure on the studios responsible for developing titles for the device.
Debuting exclusively in Japan on December 11, 1999, the 64DD was designed to be a disk drive for the Nintendo 64, enabling support for rewritable storage disks and introducing features like a real-time clock and internet connectivity. Unfortunately, due to the numerous delays that plagued its release, many games originally intended for the 64DD—most notably Pokémon Stadium and the Zelda spin-off that morphed into Majora’s Mask—were eventually shifted to standard cartridge releases instead.
One of the companies tasked with creating games for the 64DD was Digital Eden, formed by a group of former employees from Seibu Kaihatsu, known for the iconic scrolling shooter series, Raiden.
Richard Honeywood, a programmer and translator, clarified in an interview with Time Extension that Nintendo had engaged Digital Eden under a “special second-party agreement.” “If we locked it to Nintendo hardware, they would fund us, and it was a great deal,” he explained. Digital Eden also received technical support from HAL Laboratory, another Nintendo second-party entity, and Satoru Iwata, then head of HAL, provided assistance.
“We got the money, we got the hardware, and we also got technical support in the form of Iwata-san coming over once a week to discuss our progress,” Honeywood recalled. “They also mentioned that we’d meet with Miyamoto-san regularly to gauge how the game was going and to receive his feedback. That was too good a deal to resist, so we jumped on it.” However, while Iwata treated Digital Eden like a part of his team, Nintendo’s feedback was far less kind. “Eventually, the feedback on each game idea we presented was very blunt, along the lines of, ‘That’s not good. Start over,’” Honeywood shared.
This kind of harsh criticism was a jarring experience, especially considering the reverence that many held for Miyamoto-san. “Sometimes they’d even suggest, ‘We like that idea and might use it for another title, but the rest? Scrap it.’ That was the nature of our feedback,” he continued.
Nintendo expressed interest in a shooter inspired by Raiden, but Digital Eden was reluctant to replicate their past successes. Instead, they envisioned a low-violence action game featuring kids battling with water pistols and balloons—a concept not too far from what Splatoon would eventually become.
“Nintendo let us pursue that for a while,” Honeywood noted, “but as we failed to show adequate progress, the scrutiny intensified. They made it clear: ‘Soon you’re going to need to have something playable or marketable that we can approve, or we’ll have to rethink continued funding.’”
This difficult back-and-forth lasted for about two years, with the first three to six months spent learning the ropes. The rest comprised a cycle of presenting prototypes and concepts each month, only for them to be critiqued rigorously. “It was really degrading,” he admitted. “You just got ripped apart in the nicest way possible.”
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